


let our flight be far in sun

by simplyirenic



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik, The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Temeraire Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Period-Typical Racism, Pre-Relationship, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2020-12-07 16:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20978609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyirenic/pseuds/simplyirenic
Summary: In the spring of 1848, Captain Francis Crozier of Her Majesty's Aerial Corps is sent into the Arctic on a rescue mission no-one expects will succeed.CHAPTER 3: Little attempts optimism. Irving calls her brother names. Blanky finds a ship.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sadsparties](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadsparties/gifts).

> This one's for sadsparties/laissezferre on Tumblr, who's been absolutely invaluable for primary sources, plotting, and just plain bouncing ideas off! This is as much your fic as it is mine :')
> 
> For those uninitiated with the Temeraire series as a whole, a brief (and mildly spoilery) primer:
> 
> The books take place in an alternate-universe Earth where dragons live and (depending on the culture) work alongside humans. The presence of dragons on nearly every landmass has had a significant role in limiting the spread of colonialism and affecting international relations as a whole, particularly in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars: the Inca Empire remains in control of most of South America, a large part of sub-Saharan Africa is ruled by an alliance between the Tswana and Sotho kingdoms, and native tribes in the Americas have retained a great deal of their land.
> 
> In England and most of Western Europe, where dragons were traditionally considered dangerous and barely more intelligent than horses by the public, they're still playing catch-up; dragons have the right to represent themselves in Parliament, but until recently most were limited to service in the Aerial Corps, where they were paired with captains and assigned crews, much like sentient ships. The Aerial Corps itself is generally looked down upon, especially in comparison to the Navy; being emotionally tied to a twenty-ton airship tends to limit one's opportunities to present oneself in society, and the aviators themselves tend to be a rather shocking mix of lower- and middle-class second sons, bastards, dirty foreigners, and women, as there are some dragon breeds who only accept female companions.
> 
> I'm playing fast and loose with timelines in both canons, so if you spot any discrepancies, please chalk it up to the nature of working in an alternate universe, and not at all because I couldn't maintain continuity if my life depended on it!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crozier gets on a boat. Blanky takes a nap. Fitzjames tells a story.

“Well,” said Admiral Roland, setting aside the paper and fixing Crozier with one of her trademark stares, “it is not as if we cannot spare you at the moment: but it strikes me as a fool’s errand all the same, and I shall be well pleased to see the end of this sorry business.”

“I still say I ought to go instead,” said Admiral Dlamini from his perch on the window-sill. 

“And freeze to death in the great white nothing, no doubt,” said Roland briskly, “you and your lump of a dragon both. Don’t be stupid, Demane: we’re both of us too old and fat to go gallivanting about the world again, as much as you should like to.”

And too valuable to the Aerial Corps, she did not say, though Crozier heard the implication nonetheless. She might only be one year his senior, but one of them had been flying dragonback before she could walk, and one of them had not. 

Roland must have realised the effect of her words, for her gaze did not precisely soften, but she offered him a conciliatory nod. “I don’t like it any more than you do: but if you detour through Halifax covert on the return journey you might at the very least collect the three eggs owed us, and then we may call ourselves even.”

“I was under the impression that _ Goliath _ was due to set sail for Halifax in two months,” said Crozier, and watched as Roland exchanged glances with Dlamini.

“We expect you to make better time,” said Dlamini carefully, and at his neutral expression, realisation finally dawned on Crozier. 

This was not to be a mission of rescue after all, despite the hullabaloo in the papers, and the countless entreaties from Lady Franklin: this was one of salvage, and one so hopeless that not even the Navy thought it worth sending a ship of their own. Better, apparently, to let the Aerial Corps take the fall, as they always had done: after all, what more could one expect of a force that was barely even English these days? 

For a moment anger and resignation warred within him; then he exhaled, slowly, and let his fist uncurl. Roland was not to blame; he had served under her as a midwingman, and she had never been anything but a first-rate captain. 

“I am happy to go wherever the Navy requires, Your Grace,” he said, and was gratified to see a smile crack across her scarred features.

“Look at us,” she said, and reached for her pipe. “Chasing their odds and ends to the ends of the earth, even now.”

“But I’ll not risk my formation for longer than a month in the Arctic,” Crozier went on. “We’ve none of us forgotten Davis Strait.”

“I would not have expected you to,” said Roland. “I give you leave to requisition whomever you like for your journey, though if you have an ounce of sense you’ll take another middleweight and two couriers at least. And see my quartermaster for your furs; I’ll not have my captains freeze to death out of vanity, new wool uniforms or no.”

“Much obliged, Your Grace,” said Crozier dryly, and Roland snorted out a plume of smoke.

“One more ‘Your Grace’ out of you and I’ll demote you back to midwingman. Be off with you, Francis.” She paused, then, and added more soberly, “And good luck: Heaven knows you’ll need it.”

-

“It’s Davis Strait all over again, then,” said Blanky.

“It is,” said Crozier.

“I wonder if we should return to England at all this time,” said Blanky. “It seems eminently more sensible to transfer to Halifax covert entirely. For one thing, it will make for easier flying when we are called upon to haul the next batch of beef-headed limeys out of the Arctic.”

“They were hardly limeys. They were whalers, and they were exceptionally grateful.”

“They weren’t so grateful they were willing to share their catch, after,” said Blanky placidly, and unfurled one lazy wing to catch the brilliant rays of the sun.

Crozier looked at him, sprawled out across the dragon-deck of _ William of Orange _ in a heap of scales and claws, and felt something immense and undefinable settle in his chest. “You would tire of musk-ox and seal before long.”

Blanky flicked open one enormous eye. “I doubt it very much.”

In the companionable silence that followed Crozier’s gaze wandered aft to the main deck, where most of his crew were taking advantage of the midsummer sun. Irving led the runners through their trigonometry as Little looked on, and a small crowd of curious sailors had gathered around Peglar and Jopson, who were demonstrating for them the finer points of leatherworking. Crozier was pleased to see it. He had sailed before on transports where the tension had been near intolerable, with the aviators having no official responsibilities aboard a ship and the seamen resenting them for it. But Peglar was by nature a hard man to dislike, and if Jopson was not quite as obliging he was at least meticulous in his habits in the way few aviators were.

Besides which, they would not be outstaying their welcome. _ William of Orange _was making good time; they would be in Baffin Bay within the week, and from there make the approach to Devon Island by air. Even in midsummer Lancaster Sound was likely to be stopped up with ice, and a middleweight like Blanky could cover in hours what would take a ship weeks or even months. Crozier was eager to be away, but knew some part of him would miss this, too: the quiet, steady rocking of the ship under his feet, the wind at his back.

In another life, perhaps, he might have made a tolerable sailor. He had however come to terms with the circumstances of his birth at an early age, such as they were, and decided that the bottle-green of the aviators suited him better than navy blue. It had not been an easy choice to sacrifice the whisper-thin hope of glory for the certainty of hard work and the disdain of society, but it was one he did not regret—could not regret, with his dragon at his side.

“What did your Navy clodpole have to say?” said the dragon in question, his eyes still closed.

“Which?”

“The fellow with the hair.”

Crozier’s mouth twitched. “A great deal, in fact, and very little of it superfluous. He offered to lend us his full support and gave me several of his personal books and maps of the region.” He paused. “I found him surprisingly agreeable.”

Blanky rumbled in amusement. “High praise, coming from you, Francis.”

“Insolent beast,” said Crozier, and rapped him on the shoulder, which was the only part of him he could reach.

-

Truth be told, he had not expected to like Sir James Clark Ross as much as he had, and had come away from the meeting with the distinct and unusual impression that the other man had felt much the same. By Sir James’s own admission, it had nearly been the Ross expedition and not the Franklin expedition they were setting out to recover; he was oddly grateful this was not the case. Sir James had been perfectly courteous, and his advice had been sound besides.

As for Sir John Franklin, he had never made much of an impression on Crozier; most aviators viewed the naval admiralty with the same suspicion as they did a starched shirt or a properly tied cravat. He had met Franklin’s second only once, and briefly, at a banquet held some five years past, but the memory had stuck; the man had been an utter popinjay.

It was no secret that there had always been bad blood between the Navy and the Aerial Corps, but some society lady, likely Lady Franklin herself, had clearly desired they be better friends. However well-meaning her intentions had been, their execution had been botched; the sailors had been disdainful, the aviators reticent, and Crozier had been deep in his cups by the time he came upon Captain James Fitzjames, surrounded by a gaggle of adoring listeners.

“It was hard going after that,” Fitzjames had been saying. “They had stationed fire-breathers at the gates of the city, great black and gold creatures of the sort they call _ pao-lung_, easily the size of houses, and as we came over the walls I found myself damned near face-to-face with one. I confess I hesitated at the sight of him: there was an animal intelligence and savagery in his eye such as I have never seen, and never wish to see again. Well, I am not ashamed to admit he got the better of me, if only for a moment! He opened his mouth, and I had just enough time to drag my second to the ground before he belched a line of flame so hot my sword was melted to my arm.”

“Like Nelson’s medals at Trafalgar,” said a voice which Crozier with a sense of absolute betrayal had later identified as Little.

“The very same. Here—” and Fitzjames had pulled up the cuff of his coat, to better show off the shining, twisted scar that snaked along his left forearm and disappeared further up his sleeve.

“Was it very painful?” a woman had ventured, her hand to her mouth.

“Terribly: but there was no time to dwell on it, for in another minute the beast would be over the harbour and all of our ships alight. I had regrettably dropped my matches in the confusion, and in the end I was forced to light the fuse of my rocket with my own smouldering jacket-sleeve.” 

That had been the final straw. “A Congreve would like as not have only made her angrier,” Crozier had said, just loud enough to be overheard. Fitzjames had turned, mistaking his comment for interest, and blinked in surprise at the open dislike on Crozier’s face. “Besides, the _ pao-lung _ is a sterile cross-breed and invariably female. I wonder you did not know that, for all the time you spent in China playing at Saint George.” 

Crozier did not remember the rest of the evening. Fitzjames's tale had seemed in poor taste at the time, to talk of dragon-slaying with half the aviators in England in attendance. It seemed all the more so now that the war had left the Navy’s finances in utter disarray, and China in full control of the Pacific. England had come away with untold losses in men and dragons, and nothing to show for it; in the aftermath even her sole Celestial had abandoned her, and his companion with him. 

Perhaps it was pride, then, that had driven the Discovery Service into Arctic waters: to go where the Aerial Corps could not follow, at least not for long. 

-

For now the dragon-deck, heated from below and warmed by the sun, was pleasant enough, but there was a bite to the air that had not been there before. In this climate they would have a month, two at the most, before the cold grew too much for the dragons to bear: and then, no doubt, they would be on their way back to England empty-handed, to bear the shame that the Navy would not.

Aloud Crozier said, “I wonder if you weren’t right about Halifax after all.”

Blanky grunted in satisfaction. “I knew you would come round eventually.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goodsir makes a friend. Crozier looks at a pile of rocks. Hartnell has a bad day.

They were a full day in the air before Crozier thought to check on the naturalist.

The miles had rolled away below them, the coastline of Devon Island strangely rust-red and barren where it was not frozen over entirely, dotted here and there with patches of lichen. The hunting had been good so far: Blanky had done for a reasonably large musk-ox, and toward the afternoon the riflemen bagged a hare and several petrels during target practice, which would supplement their evening meal. These last were confiscated by Dr MacDonald before they could be plucked, with an apologetic smile, and it was only then Crozier remembered the passenger they had taken on at Edinburgh covert. 

He had not seen much of him since; MacDonald had taken him under his wing, so to speak, which was good enough for Crozier. But now, as they made camp in the shelter of a rounded cliff-top, he returned from directing the ground-crew to find the man surprisingly deep in conversation with Blanky.

“I hope he is not bothering you, Mr Goodsir?” he called, as he drew nearer. “Only Blanky will talk your ear off if you let him.”

“Oh, not in the slightest.” Goodsir scrambled to his feet, blushing; Crozier caught sight of a leatherbound journal before it disappeared into his pocket. “I was the one who approached him. I confess I have never spoken to a dragon before, and when I saw he was quite alone I thought I might introduce myself.”

“There’s no need to indulge him,” said Crozier drily. “I am sure your academic interest does not extend itself to rock formations and ice-flow.”

“I can eat him, if you like,” said Blanky in an aside to Goodsir that could be heard a mile away. “It won’t take but a minute, and I had rather not have Little for a captain, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.”

Goodsir smiled nervously. Across the clearing, Irving grinned and elbowed Little, who rolled his eyes heavenward at her.

“Pay him no mind,” said Crozier. The Corps had never stood on formality; he supposed their casual banter might seem overwhelming to one unused to it, as he had when he was a youth. “How do you find yourself settling in?”

“Oh, very well: your crew has been most accommodating. Mr Hartnell in particular has been showing me the ropes, and it has been marvelous to see this country from dragon-back.” He paused, and added shyly, “I only wish we might stop more often to collect specimens.”

“I am not a whaling-ship, I am sorry to say, where you might draw up a net at your leisure,” said Blanky, not unkindly. “I am surprised you did not sign on to one of those instead.”

“I nearly did, in fact,” said Goodsir. “I was very fond of oceanic invertebrates in my youth. But then—have you heard of a scholar by the name of Sipho Tsuluka Dlamini?”

It was a reasonable question, for a civilian, but a fraught one. Crozier hesitated before replying, “I should think so: his brother is Admiral of the Air, and has command of Edinburgh covert.”

Goodsir brightened at once. “Then they are an exceedingly accomplished family. I had the honour of attending a lecture given by Dr Dlamini on the subject of his travels in Terra Australis, and I confess I was quite enchanted. He spoke at length about the creatures he encountered there, and his description of the _ bunyips’ _vestigial wing-joints, similar as they are to those of dragons, has significant implications for Lamarck’s theory of evolution—”

Crozier relaxed as Goodsir went on. The Dlaminis were controversial figures; there were those among the Corps who still considered them interlopers from darkest Africa, even now, years after their naturalisation. As for Crozier, his own allegiances had been set at the start; in his opinion, any man who had earned the respect of a heavyweight—and that of Emily Roland beside—deserved to keep it.

“I am sorry you have only our dragon-surgeon to ask for advice,” he said, when Goodsir paused to take a breath. “But he has traveled even farther afield than I, and will certainly have more to add to your theories.”

“Of course,” said Goodsir at once. “I hope I have not caused offence?”

Blanky rumbled with amusement. “Not at all. I hadn’t the faintest idea what you were talking about, but it was said in such a complimentary tone you are welcome to say it again.”

“Only beware,” said Crozier, “you will make a lap-dog of him, if you are not careful.”

This time Goodsir’s smile was genuine. “I am sure I will have more questions for you in future, Mr Blanky. Captain Crozier.”

“Mr Blanky! I like the sound of that,” said Blanky, as Goodsir picked his way back across the camp. “I was certain he’d cut straps the first day, but he’s hardier than he looks. We’ll make an aviator of him yet.”

“I am glad to hear it,” said Crozier. “We will need every man in the days ahead.”

Blanky glanced at him. “In what capacity? Rescuer or priest?”

“You know, I think.”

“Lancaster Sound was frozen solid,” said Blanky, almost conversationally. “The pack never thawed out last year. And at Talluruti the Inuit said the same happened the year before.”

Crozier grunted. “What are you thinking?”

“They could have made for Fury Beach overland. There’s supplies aplenty there, if they were running low.”

“If they weren’t too far from it already.”

“How far could they have got, if they were frozen in?”

Crozier opened his mouth to respond, and then closed it: one of the midwingmen was running up to him. As he drew closer they saw it was Evans, his boots skidding on the loose gravel. He caught his breath, then saluted.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but one of the couriers is back early: he says he’s found something you’ll want to see.”

-

The courier in question was a large Winchester by the name of Magnus, one of the rare lightweights Crozier had known to take harness but no captain. As he landed his ground-crew surrounded him, seeing to his harness and unpacking the gear strapped to his side.

“There was an island, with a pile of rocks as tall as a man,” he reported nervously, “and some houses, and some little wooden signs; at first I thought it might be an Esquimaux camp. But then I saw there were letters on the signs: I know my letters well enough.”

He nodded to one of his men, who reached into a bag clipped onto his harness and produced a large roll of paper, upon which Crozier could just make out penciled words, awkwardly made.

“Sacred to the memory of—” he read, and looked up sharply. “This is a headboard, Magnus. How many did you count?”

“That was one of them: there were two more,” said Magnus. “But I could not make them out: the writing was terribly small.”

A movement in the corner of Crozier’s eye caught his attention. One of Magnus’s harness-men was still hovering a short distance away, clearly eavesdropping. At Crozier’s questioning look he knuckled his forehead cheerfully and sauntered off to join his mates.

“I don’t recognise that man from the covert,” said Crozier offhandedly.

Magnus brightened. “Oh,” he said, “that is Cornelius: he joined up, just before we left. He has been uncommon kind to me.”

“Hm,” said Crozier. “Magnus, how far away was this island, by your reckoning?”

“Perhaps fifteen minutes’ flight,” said Magnus. “I saw it and came right back. Ought I have kept going? Only Alacritas said she would press on, so—”

“No, you did well to return.” Crozier looked down again at the paper, the letters crammed tightly against each other in Magnus’s large draconic hand so as to be almost illegible: _ John Torrington, who departed this life January 1st, A.D. 1846, on board of HM ship Terror, aged 20 years. _

He had not thought they would find any trace of the ships in the unforgiving wastes; had thought this would be a thankless task like any other the Navy asked of the Corps. For them to come upon so clear a sign so early on beggared belief. 

“Shall I give the order to break camp, sir?” asked Little.

“No need. Magnus and I will be back directly.” Crozier glanced instinctively at the sun, still resolutely high in the sky, before he remembered their position and consulted his pocket-watch instead.

“Permission to join you, sir,” said Irving, and he looked up in faint surprise. There was no sign of her usual good humor in her voice, and her eyes were clear and serious behind her scarf.

“I want to come too.” Young Tom Hartnell now, rushing up with his arms still full of canvas. “Please, sir.”

He cocked an eyebrow; they returned his gaze, unwavering, and he sighed and snapped his pocket-watch shut.

“Very well. The two of you, with me: the rest of you, get some sleep.”

It had been some time since Crozier had flown on a lightweight; with no protective tarp to protect the passengers, the wind tore at every exposed inch of skin on his face with a ferocity that would have been eye-watering had he not been wearing goggles. Behind him Irving and Hartnell were hooked on fast, hunched uncomplaining against the wind, but when Magnus circled the island once and finally descended he could hear their sighs of relief.

The courier was as good as his word; there were indeed the remnants of houses on the shoreline, and three whitewashed headboards in a row not far away. Crozier unbuckled himself and slid the short distance to the ground, his mind racing. The expedition must have wintered here, two years ago. They would have left signs as to their intended route, consciously or otherwise. Wherever they went next—

He felt the weight of responsibility descend on him as it had not before. Everything depended on this.

“Magnus,” he said, trying to arrange his scattered thoughts, “open that cairn, if you please: it may be Sir John left some message inside it. Irving, take down our location: we may break camp and move here after all. It will be more comfortable to shelter in the houses tonight. What is it?”

“Sir,” said Irving, and pointed. 

At first he did not understand. Then he saw, with a feeling like his heart falling unstrapped from the harness: Hartnell taking one unsteady step, then another, then stumbling to his knees before the central grave.

-

It was later. 

Crozier had thought having to break camp might be hard on the men, but the minor inconvenience had paled in comparison to finding signs they were on Franklin’s trail. They set to their tasks with a will, and in short order had posted up in the shelter of what looked as if they had been wash-houses, several seasons ago. One of the buildings had clearly been a forge, to the delight of all the ground-crews, and soon the air was alight with voices and the sound of ringing metal.

Crozier watched Hartnell fidget in his seat, his eyes still red-rimmed. 

On a larger expedition he might have allowed one of the lieutenants to speak to the lad on his behalf. Here, in the unforgiving Arctic, with a crew of barely twenty, this was a captain’s duty more than anything else. But that did not mean that he had the talent for it.

“I didn’t know you had a brother in the Navy,” he said, at last.

“We’re English, after all,” said Hartnell miserably. “The tradition—well. You know, sir.”

Crozier knew. How did it go again? The first son to the sea; the second to the sky. Hartnell was hardly the first man in his crew for whom the service was a long-standing family tradition. Evans had come to the Corps by much the same way, and it was an open secret that Little had made lieutenant partially on the recommendation of his uncle, who had been a close friend of the late Admiral Granby. 

He turned to Irving, an unspoken question: she nodded, imperceptibly.

“My brother,” she said. “John.”

Crozier could feel the threads of this conversation slipping away from him. He had not meant for this to become an interrogation, but now it had started there was no stopping it. “Who else?”

“Harry Peglar, I think,” said Hartnell, looking up. “He mentioned he had a friend aboard _ Erebus._”

Crozier’s jaw tightened. “And you and Mr Peglar requested your transfers from Immortalis because you thought—what, precisely?”

“Not _ requested _ exactly,” said Hartnell hurriedly. “But you and Blanky—you ought to know you’ve a bit of a reputation in Dover covert, sir. For going north, and coming back.”

This was news to Crozier, who had viewed his last trip to Davies Strait as more of a Pyrrhic victory than anything else. He quirked an eyebrow at Irving, who at least could not have put in a transfer request; she had been on his crew going on twelve years, and had always struck him as eminently sensible, if mildly irreverent.

“When I heard Admiral Roland was putting out the call…” She hesitated. “My brothers would call it a sign from God, perhaps. I don’t know what I’d call it.”

Crozier pressed a hand to his temple. He wanted a drink desperately, and in the same thought knew it was the last thing he needed; it was the height of irresponsibility, when any careless step dragonback might result in a broken leg, a snapped neck, a long fall with an abrupt end. It was, he thought grimly, nearly as irresponsible as signing on to a rescue expedition in the hope of finding one’s long-lost friends and relations, without telling one’s captain.

He considered the two pale faces before him, feeling decidedly unmoored: Irving unnaturally tight-lipped, Hartnell looking as if any wrong word might send him all over weeping again.

“I see,” he said at last, and the words came out stiff and awkward from disuse: “Tom, I am sorry.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Hartnell, shakily.

“I’ll have Golding take your watch tonight, Tom,” said Irving, and Crozier shot her a grateful look.

“For tonight only, mind. I’ll not promise to make any special allowances for either of you, nor for Mr Peglar. I can’t say what you did was against protocol. But there must be order.”

“Yes, sir,” said Hartnell, and Irving touched her thumb to her forehead as Crozier stood.

He only paused to turn back and say, “And for God’s sake don’t tell Blanky about his reputation. His head is large enough as it is,” and was oddly gratified when Hartnell managed a watery smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Certain historical inconsistencies encountered in this chapter will be explained eventually. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little attempts optimism. Irving calls her brother names. Blanky finds a ship.

In the dead of summer, the difficulty of traveling lay in resting enough; with no night to force a halt, Crozier found himself ordering a rest every ten hours so that Blanky did not tire himself out. But his crew had caught the scent now, and he did not have the heart to tell them that their discovery on Beechey Island had like as not been a fluke; that all of the cairns there had been left empty; that in this barren wasteland their chances of stumbling upon another clue were next to nothing. He knew it was as much his inclination to melancholy as his practical nature that kept such thoughts close at hand, and if his men were eager for the hunt now he would not deny them their joy. There would be time enough for somber reflection later, when the month was up.

Three days’ steady flying brought them to Somerset Island and Fury Beach, where they found no further sign of Franklin nor his men, as Crozier had feared. It would have been an ideal place for the expedition to winter if they had come down Prince Regent Inlet: but the overturned boats and supply caches were all undisturbed, as they likely had been for years, and the knowledge that their trail had gone cold was at least enough to sober a few faces in camp.

“They’ll have gone around the western side of the island, then,” said Blanky, peering farsightedly down at the map Crozier held. It was the most recent he could find from Sir James Ross’s collection, and shortly past the coastline of Somerset Island there was only uninterrupted white. They would have to begin filling in the map themselves, before long. 

“The year forty-six was unseasonably warm,” offered Little. “They may have sailed out of the ice with no incident.”

“Or beached themselves like a whale,” said Crozier drily, “or been trapped and crushed by the pack.”

“Or sprouted wings and flown away,” said Blanky, unmoved. “Come now, Francis. It may not be as bad as all that.” 

“You and I both know that it might.” Crozier scratched absently at his chin; his beard was coming in patchy, as it usually did on long flights. “Sir John’s official instructions were to sail for Cape Walker—” he tapped the spot, pencilled in neatly to the west of Somerset Island— “and from there make his way southwest through the Polar Sea. I cannot discount the possibility that he wintered there in forty-seven: but if he had become trapped in the ice he must have known Fury Beach was within walking distance.”

“It may be they sailed south, sir,” said Little, “past whatever land-mass contains the cape.”

Crozier frowned in acknowledgment. “We will keep to the waterways, in any case, and continue to send the couriers along the coast. A ship is easier to spot at distance than a man; and if they were forced to abandon ship, their log at least may offer us some clue as to which direction they took afterward.”

As the meeting adjourned he chanced a look at Irving, who had not said a word for most of it, except to respond monosyllabically to the occasional question. But she was already up, moving sure-footed and resolute away across the shale.

-

He found her the next day seated just behind Blanky’s wing-joint, in the little pocket of space that any seasoned aviator knew offered the most shelter from the wind. As Crozier approached she started, as if she had been lost in thought, then gave a mittened wave in lieu of a proper salute.

“Hullo, skipper,” she said with forced cheer, her voice a little muffled by the fur hood pulled tight around her face. “Come and sit: it’s warmer here than elsewhere, for all the good it’ll do you.”

He did so, with a muttered thanks as she readjusted her carabiners and shuffled aside to make room for him. “Have you spoken to Hartnell recently?”

She glanced downwind, but the bulk of the crew had chosen to shelter below in the netting, and in any case she could barely be heard over the roar of the wind. “He’s—as well as can be expected, sir. It was a shock.”

“You needn’t justify it to me,” said Crozier gruffly. “The lad’s lost a brother.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you, lieutenant?”

“Don’t you worry about me, sir,” she said, and to her credit very nearly sounded as if she meant it.

“Barbara,” said Crozier, and felt rather than saw her wince. She shot him an agonised look from behind her goggles.

“That’s cheating, sir.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I. Only—” she hesitated.

“Speak up, Irving,” said Crozier.

“Do you think they’re still alive, sir?”

Crozier was silent. 

It was easy to forget that most of his crew had never seen action of any sort. Only MacDonald and Jopson had come with him and Blanky in ‘35; the rest were as of yet untried, untested, hoping, he had thought, to draw some sort of promotion out of what they thought a simple rescue mission. He had tried, after a fashion, to impress upon them the dangers of their assignment, but now that he knew how deeply personal some of their reasons for coming aboard were he doubted that his words had stuck.

“You said you have a brother aboard _ Terror_,” he said, in lieu of a proper response.

“Yes, sir. Six years my elder.”

“Are the two of you close?”

“He’s a bit of a swot, sir, if I may be frank,” said Irving, which startled a laugh out of Crozier. “Most of the family is.”

“You yourself are no slouch at trigonometry, as I recall,” said Crozier, still amused.

“Oh, yes, sir, but I haven’t got a _ medal _ for it. They went perfectly spare when I announced I was joining the Corps; I should think it would take a title to get some of them to speak to me again.”

“And do you count your brother among them?”

Impossible to read her expression behind the goggles and layers of fur: but she hesitated, just a moment. “He doesn’t know, sir.”

“No?”

“No, sir,” she said. “He and David—that’s my other brother, sir—they fancied themselves sheep-farmers when they were younger, and went off to New South Wales, and I signed up while they were gone, rather fancying an adventure myself. When they returned my father didn’t see fit to tell them what I’d done, on account of the family felt I had caused quite enough trouble already.”

Crozier looked at her, or at the very least what he could see of her: a small but compact young woman hidden almost entirely by furs, leaning into the wind as if she had done it all her life. She had been assigned to Blanky as a runner upon their return from the Circle, as there had not been room for her aboard any of the Longwings at the time. She had however conducted herself so well in the interim that when the Admiralty had brought up the possibility of her transfer Crozier had refused point-blank.

He thought of what might have driven a girl of sixteen to do such a thing; thought also of Hartnell, kneeling pale-faced and silent at his brother’s grave.

“Well,” he said at last. “You can tell him yourself, when we find him.”

-

But there was no sign of Irving’s brother or indeed any other living creature at Cape Walker; there was no sign of them all along the stark grey cliffs of the barren land it was attached to. Every day Crozier increased the couriers’ patrols, and every day they came back as empty-handed as they had the day before. So far the weather had held steady, but they were fast approaching the summer solstice and the halfway point of the month Crozier had fixed for himself.

These nights he dreamed more often than not of Davis Strait: of the long dark of the Arctic winter, and only the_ aurora borealis _ to see it by. They were further west now then they had ever been then.

On the fifth day after they had left Fury Beach, the second courier came winging her way back toward them only a few hours after she had departed. Blanky called to her as she drew nearer, and she called back, her words made unintelligible to Crozier by the distance; without so much as a by-your-leave, he tilted his wings in a dive, and came to a smooth landing on the frozen sea.

“Do you know, I thought they were carcasses from the air,” the courier was saying to Blanky as Crozier dismounted. She untied a messenger satchel from her side, which clanked alarmingly. “Then I thought: hang on a tick, a dragon knows metal when she sees it, what! Nearly froze my claws off trying to get them out, but there you have it. Captain,” she added, to Crozier.

“Let’s see what you’ve found then, Alacritas,” he said.

“I think, sir, you will find the evidence incontrovertible,” said Alacritas, and shook out the contents of the satchel with an awful clatter.

They were empty tins, Crozier realized: a great mound, stark red against the ice. Alacritas had gathered as many as she could find, and she had found very nearly two stone of them.

She indicated them with a nod. “After a while I lost the trail, which was damned inconsiderate of them; but there is no mistaking it. They went south, toward King William Land.”

Crozier knelt by the pile of tins. Some of them still contained the frozen traces of their former contents, horrible and brown. Impossible to tell how long they had lain there, with the pass stopped up like this: it could have been months, or years; but if Alacritas had had to dig them out of the ice, he was inclined to put his money on years.

“Then toward King William Land we will go,” he said.

-

The morning they found the ships it was unseasonably cold for midsummer: frost limned their tents when they awoke, and for once they all made their flight preparations with no complaint, eager to be off the ice and in the air again.

Just before noon the lookout spotted _ Erebus _ three points to starboard.

His halloo brought the crew tumbling out of the belly-netting to watch as they approached. She had been caught and dragged partly under by the pack; her bowsprit was pointed very nearly at the sky, more of her hull visible than her deck. The rest of her jutted out of the landscape like a great black mountain, her stern long since lost under the ice. There was no movement as they drew closer, no hail or signal, though the unending summer light meant anyone aboard would have seen Blanky coming from miles away. 

“They must have abandoned ship,” said Irving, over the roar of the wind. “Consolidated onto _ Terror_, and made it out through the Passage before winter.”

It was as solid a hypothesis as any, and for a moment Crozier was inclined to believe it. Then Blanky rounded _ Erebus_’s starboard side, and he saw the yawning hole torn in her, and the bodies frozen into the wreckage, and knew that she was wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -In our timeline, Barbara Irving was born in 1821 and died the same year. The Temeraire timeline is a little more forgiving about when and where people die (see: Nelson surviving Trafalgar, Tecumseh defeating Alexander Hamilton in the 1808 election).


End file.
